Biden Bows to the Supremes, but the Damage Is Done

President Biden today unveiled his so-called executive actions on climate. “Climate change is literally an existential threat to our nation and to the world,” he said. “When it comes to fighting climate change, I will not take no for an answer.” It was a week ago that Mr. Biden was having a temper tantrum against Senator Manchin and the Supreme Court: “If the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry I will take strong executive action to meet this moment.” A week earlier, he criticized the Supreme Court for deciding in favor of West Virginia and against the EPA. As you recall, the court said government regulators do not have enhanced power to put into place wide-reaching economic impact regulations unless Congress explicitly gives it to them in the form of statutory legislation. Well, compared to all that Biden blarney, his announcement today was a complete nothing burger. It was a bunch of small beer served in tiny cups that will be barely noticeable. So I’m relabeling his speech, “Supremes 10, Biden 0.” He wouldn’t take them on. He may threaten later, and throw more Biden blarney at us, but so far it seems like he’s beginning to realize that the Supremes took much of his radical climate actions away from him. He’s starting to figure that out, and that’s okay because he’s already done enough damage. Yesterday, after all, was the one-year anniversary of Mr. Biden’s proclamation that the 5.4 percent inflation last July would be “temporary”: “Our experts believe and the data shows that most of the price increases we’ve seen are — were expected and expected to be temporary.” Oops. The last reading for June was a 9.1 percent CPI — almost a double of a year ago — and if that wasn’t bad enough for the fist-bumper-in-chief, we are at the very least at the front end of a recession. Looks like the first half of 2022 will register a 1.6 percent average GDP decline with about an 8.5 percent inflation rate. That’s why he has a 28 percent economic approval rating in the latest Quinnipiac poll. Not too good. Here’s a key point: Economic decline in the first half of this year has been caused by skyrocketing inflation, in no small measure self-caused by Mr. Biden’s obsessive, near religious war against fossil fuels. Energy prices jumped way before anybody was thinking about Vladimir Putin invading Ukraine. Now, all prices are rising across the board. Energy, food, new cars, used cars, housing, services — you name it — it’s too much federal spending, too much money printing, too much of this war against fossil fuels, too many regulations, too much big-government socialism. The reason the economy is slumping is that the inflation tax has caused real worker wages to fall and real retail sales to fall. Manufacturing is declining and housing is tanking. Interest rates have gone up quite a bit, especially in the mortgage market. They may be not quite at their highs, but it’s been a tough first half of the year. This is the Biden inflation on the slumping economy. It’s the inflation impact. The effects of Federal Reserve tightening have yet to be felt on the economy — that’s still in front of us. So, the great news is that the Supreme Court seems to have shackled Mr. Biden’s radical climate agenda. The bad news is the damage has already been done, and will linger on for quite some time. Now, here’s another thought: For the life of me — I mean, I’m being very sincere here — I don’t understand why the Republican Party, which is likely to come into power again after the November midterm elections, continues to throw in with Democrats and spend, spend, spend. They got sucker-punched again yesterday when 16 Republicans voted for a motion to proceed on a nifty little piece of corporate welfare, industrial planning, and completely unnecessary semiconductor chip subsidies. It’s bad enough that that would have cost $76 billion — just the subsidies, and the refundable tax credits included in there, which is really more government check-writing to chip companies that hardly pay any taxes — but now it turns out Senator Schumer lured the GOP into a $250 billion trap with slush funds for the Energy Department, slush funds for the Commerce Department, a doubling of the National Science Foundation, and a laundry list of additional spending items. As yet, no one precisely knows, but the common ballpark estimate is $250 billion. Let me repeat: $250 billion, with 16 Republican votes in the Senate. You might ask, what about the pay-fors? Well, will you be shocked if I tell you there are none? So, the inflationary federal spending continues — basically on a bipartisan basis. I find this just incredible, and this semiconductor Intel corporate bailout is completely unnecessary. My question is: Does anybody in D.C. want to stop spending? Does anybody in D.C. want to curb inflation? Does anybody care that working people are suffering mightily because of Washington’s fiscal extravagance? Right now, the answer seems to be no, no, and no. You know me: I like to be optimistic. There’s a way out of this mess. Freeze domestic spending. Make the Trump tax cuts permanent. Call off the dogs in the war against fossil fuels. Stop this regulatory socialism. In fact, do what President Reagan did 40 years ago — when I was a mere child and worked for him in his Office of Management and Budget. The Reagan anti-inflation plan was simple: king dollar and tax cuts, sometimes called tight money and tax cuts. Those glorious Reagan ideas seem to be forgotten. Right now, the cavalry is coming. The question I have is, will they know what to do? From Mr. Kudlow’s broadcast on Fox Business News.

Biden Bows to the Supremes, but the Damage Is Done

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